The new world economic conditions and increasing global competition have changed the way in which manufacturing companies view production/operations management and their role in achieving greater productivity, lower costs, operational efficiency and better customer service. Several manufacturing planning and control systems have been developed in order to enable manufacturers to meet these new challenges. Material Requirements Planning System-MRP I and its extension Manufacturing Resources Planning System-MRP II, the much proclaimed systems, have gained wide acceptance from both academics and practitioners. The research presented here concentrates on the key issues of MRP practices and the effectiveness of MRP systems. Evidence from the literature shows that over 60 percent of MRP I/MRP II users have failed to achieve the expected benefits. Also, a review of the literature reveals that very little work has been done to provide mathematical models to relate these benefits to their determinants. Furthermore, it reveals that much was written about MRP practices based on case studies, but very few studies survey-based have been conducted to investigate MRP implementation. None of these studies was conducted in less developed countries. The researcher has attempted to fill some of these gaps in this study by posing three key questions, namely: how have MRP systems been implemented in Egyptian manufacturing companies?, what are the benefits obtained from these which have been implemented?, and what are the explanatory variables of MRP systems effectiveness?. Accordingly, the objectives of the current study are threefold: " To investigate MRP practices in Egyptian manufacturing companies. " To assess the effectiveness of MRP practices measured by the benefits obtained from MRP implementation based on the expectations and perceptions of MRP users in Egyptian manufacturing companies. " To explorea nd examineth e explanatoryv ariableso f MRP systemse ffectiveness. This study has drawn on an extensive review of the literature and previous empirical studies in western industrialised countries and in newly industrialised countries. The strategy used to achieve the research objectives involved quantitative analysis of questionnaire data. Data for the study were collected by a postal questionnaire. One questionnaire was sent out to each company within the Egyptian industrial ex-public sector. Companies were asked if an MRP user in their organisations could respond (production manager or materials manager or inventory control manager or master scheduler or management information systems manager). Of 200 questionnaires sent out, 123 replies were received, giving a response rate of 61.5%. Of the 123 replies, 93 respondents were usable giving a usable response rate of 46.5%: some unusable responses were the result of a high proportion of missing values. The final usable sample was broken-down into respondents from companies which had implemented MRP systems and respondents from non-MRP companies (52: 41). Extensive quantitative methods to analyse questionnaire data were used i. e. Frequency Analysis, Mean Value, Standard Deviation, Mann-Whitney test, T-test, Kruskal Wallis, One Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Paired T-test, Spearman's Correlation Coefficient, Bartlett's test, K-M-O technique, Principal Component of Factor Analysis, Eigenvalue criterion, Varimax Rotation technique, Skewness method, Cook's Distance measure, Scatterplots method, Adjusted R2, OLS technique, Forward and Backward Stepwise strategies and ACE model (Alternating Conditional Expectation technique). This study has provided important insights into the current situation and practices related to rvRP users in Egypt. The main findings of this study indicated that MRP practices in Egypt are relatively similar to those in the newly industrialised countries and in the west. The findings of this research indicated that Egyptian users believe that the expected benefits from MRP implementation have been obtained, though most of the companies which have installed MRP are relative beginners. However, not all MRP users attained the same degree of MRP benefits. Our findings indicated that the MRP benefit-determinant relationships take a nonlinear form for several relationships. Knowledge of this non-linearity may be advantageous for both MRP managers and users in order to manage these relationships effectively for achieving the effectiveness of MRP practices. Finally, valuable implications have been drawn for managers and practitioners to achieve more successful implementation of MRP systems.

This thesis aims to investigate and study a variety of dimensions of the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI), domestic investment (DI) and economic growth in the host countries. The main purpose of this thesis is to empirically examine the implications of the relationship and complementarity between FDI and DI, and the contribution of the host country’s factors in achieving the benefits of FDI inflows. To achieve the aim and to examine the argument of this thesis, the thesis was structured to include six chapters, containing three empirical chapters. These empirical chapters studied different hypotheses of the relationship between FDI and economic growth. The first empirical chapter attempted to find the answer to these two questions: (a) does FDI contribute positively to GDP; and (b) does FDI really crowd out DI in the host countries. The second empirical chapter also tried to offer the answer to this question: does FDI contribute to economic growth in developing countries alone, or does it depend on its initial conditions? Furthermore, the third empirical chapter studies the direct impact of not only FDI but also other foreign capital inflows on economic growth, and their indirect impact on economic growth, which works via domestic investment channel. This chapter searched for the answer to this question: how do FDI and other types of foreign capital inflows affect economic growth? Chapter one presents the motivation of the thesis and sets its aim and structure. Chapter two presents a background of economic literature on the relationship between FDI, DI and economic growth. This chapter also provides a brief review of theoretical and empirical background on the interrelationship between those variables, in order to reach a better understanding of the contributions of FDI and DI to economic growth in the host countries. Based on this chapter, Chapter three studies empirically the relationship between FDI, DI and economic growth by applying a multivariate VAR system with the error correction model (ECM) and time-series and panel-data techniques of cointegration to investigate the links between FDI, DI and GDP. The empirical evidence reported in this chapter shows that, on the one hand, FDI crowds out DI in the host countries, either in the short-run or in the long-run based on the results of time-series analysis. On the other hand, Panel-data techniques provide strong evidence that FDI has crowding-in effect on DI. Both time-series and panel-data analysis also provide evidence that FDI can positively affect economic growth in host countries. The results of this chapter also show that GDP have a positive impact on FDI and DI, either in the short-run or in the long-run. The results also show that DI is positively related to GDP and FDI in receiving economies. Based on the results of Chapter three, Chapter four investigated empirically whether FDI contributes to economic growth alone, or does it depend on the host country’s conditions. The empirical evidence stated in this chapter shows that FDI inflows have, in general, a significantly positive impact on growth; however, the magnitude of this effect depends on the host country’s absorptive capacity as measured by human capital, technology gap, infrastructure, institution quality, financial market, and trade openness. The results of this chapter show that the host country must reach a threshold of absorptive capacity in order to gain the positive externalities offered by FDI inflows. The results of this chapter also show that domestic investment, human capital, infrastructure development, financial market development, institution quality, and trade openness are positively related to economic growth, while the technology gap is negatively related to economic growth. Based on the results of chapter three and four, chapter five explored whether the positive impact of FDI and other foreign capital inflows (portfolio investment and loans inflows) in DI on the host economies can be considered as a growth-enhancing role not only for FDI but also for other foreign capital inflows. The results reported in this chapter show that all types of foreign capital inflows have a significant positive influence on economic growth in the host economies. The empirical evidence reported in this chapter also shows that FDI inflows have a more significant effect on economic growth than other type of capital inflows, such as portfolio investment and loans inflows. The results of this chapter also show that all types of foreign capital inflows have a strong crowding-in effect on DI in the host countries; however, FDI inflows have a greater crowding-in effect on DI than portfolio investment, and loans inflows are in between them. The main result presented in chapter five is that the impact of FDI, portfolio investment and loans inflows on economic growth, which works via domestic investment channel, is not a significant one, but also is generally greater and more robust than the direct impact in the host economies. Generally, the most important contribution of this thesis is that a better understanding of the relationship between FDI, DI and economic growth in developing countries, taking into account the influence of the host country’s absorptive capacity, and different types of foreign capital inflows.

This thesis contains three essays. In the first essay, I examine whether a temporary policy can affect long-run house hold behavior. I look at evidence from a nine-month compulsory rationing imposed on Brazilian households’ electricity use in 2001, exploiting differences in the policy’s implementation across regions as a quasi-experiment to test its short-and long-run impacts on households’ electricity consumption patterns. I find that the rationing program led to a persistent reduction in electricity use of 14% even ten years later. Unique household level microdata on appliance ownership and consumption habits suggest that the main source of persistence is changes in the utilization of electricity services, rather than technology adoption. In the second essay, we examine the effects of China’s recent emergence into the world economy in local labour markets in Brazil. Much of the literature have viewed China as a competitor. However, China is also an increasingly large consumer of goods produced abroad, and an increasing share of its import demand is for primary goods. Using census data, we compare trends in migration, unemployment, employment structure (primary/manufacturing/services), informality and participation on Bolsa Família program in areas affected by the ‘China competition shock’ and the ‘China demand shock’. We find significant and heterogeneous effects from these two ‘shocks’. In the third essay, we employ an unified theoretical framework to structurally estimate the effect of changes within China on the production in Brazil and in the rest of the world. Based on the Ricardian model of trade of Costinot et al. (2012), we perform counterfactuals exercises to analyze how countries and industries in Brazil would have performed in the absence of the recent Chinese ascension. Results suggest that changes in China’s comparative advantage hampered manufacturing sector abroad. We find no support for the idea of China demand (taste) shock towards raw materials.

Much cross-sectional data in econometrics is blighted by dependence across units. A solution to this problem is the use of spatial models that allow for an explicit form of dependence across space. This thesis studies problems related to spatial models with increasingly many parameters. A large proportion of the thesis concentrates on Spatial Autoregressive (SAR) models with increasing dimension. Such models are frequently used to model spatial correlation, especially in settings where the data are irregularly spaced. Chapter 1 provides an introduction and background material for the thesis. Chapter 2 develops consistency and asymptotic normality of least squares and instrumental variables (IV) estimates for the parameters of a higher-order spatial autoregressive (SAR) model with regressors. The order of the SAR model and the number of regressors are allowed to approach infinity with sample size, and the permissible rate of growth of the dimension of the parameter space relative to sample size is studied. An alternative to least squares or IV is to use the Gaussian pseudo maximum likelihood estimate (PMLE), studied in Chapter 3. However, this is plagued by finitesample problems due to the implicit definition of the estimate, these being exacerbated by the increasing dimension of the parameter space. A computationally simple Newton type step is used to obtain estimates with the same asymptotic properties as those of the PMLE. Chapters 4 and 5 of the thesis deal with spatial models on an equally spaced, d dimensional lattice. We study the covariance structure of stationary random fields defined on d-dimensional lattices in detail and use the analysis to extend many results from time series. Our main theorem concerns autoregressive spectral density estimation. Stationary random fields on a regularly spaced lattice have an infinite autoregressive representation if they are also purely non-deterministic. We use truncated versions of the AR representation to estimate the spectral density and establish uniform consistency of the proposed spectral density estimate.

This thesis is motivated by the progressive expansion of electronic markets with reduced pre-trade transparency and the collateral liquidity effects. In this thesis I develop three independent theoretical models and explore the repercussions of weak market liquidity and transparency. First, I approach the issue of limited liquidity through the optimal order placement problem of a risk-averse trader in a continuous time context and introduce a random delay parameter, which defers limit order execution and characterises market liquidity. This framework demonstrates that imperfect liquidity explains order clustering in the proximity of best quotes and the existence of the bid-ask spread. The distribution of expected time-to-fill of limit orders conforms to the empirically observed distribution of trading times, and its variance decreases with liquidity. Finally, two additional stylised facts are rationalised in this model: the equilibrium bid-ask spread decreases with liquidity, but increases with agents’ risk aversion. My second framework adjoins the few theoretical attempts in the literature to challenge investors’ incentives to participate in opaque trading environments. Through a real option approach I justify how market opacity can encourage liquidity provision, which, in turn, supports the empirical evidence on the proliferation of such trading venues. I demonstrate that transparency in conjunction with liquidity determine traders’ eagerness to supply liquidity to the opaque market, and that once the trader enters the opaque market, he commits to trade relatively quickly. Furthermore, error analysis reveals that impatient traders are highly likely to pass over favourable trade execution offered in the opaque market precisely because of imperfect clarity of information signals, while a prior optimistic bias prompts the trader to submit his limit order sooner. Lastly, as a complement to static inference on individual level, I establish an artificial market with heterogeneous agents and distinct transparency regimes that replicates the long memory properties and empirical order flow patterns. The results suggest that full quote transparency incurs substantial transaction costs and dampens trading activity, while exogenous restriction of displayed depth up to several quotes does not alter significantly market performance. The core implication of this model is that the endogenous restriction of displayed quote depth by means of iceberg orders improves market quality in multiple dimensions. This thesis contributes to the microstructure domain by providing a theoretical support to the benefits of market opacity as well as its downsides. The research outcomes of this thesis are, therefore, relevant from a regulatory standpoint.

This thesis examines, from the perspective of the professional buyer, value perceptions and approaches to relationship management. Research relating to the professional buying process is often hampered by issues relating to commercial confidentiality which impacts upon access to both the pre-sales interaction and also to details of the final terms of trade. Nevertheless, both researchers and practitioners continue to call for a better understanding of the purchaser/supplier interface. This thesis endeavours to penetrate the commercial sensitivity by adopting a qualitative research stance focusing on perceptions of transactional value and buyer behaviour. Support for such an approach is to be found across a range of literature and through this methodology the research aims to provide a more holistic understanding of the professional buying process and the related social interactions and relationships. The study centres on transactions in which the prevailing power balance dictates that there is significant interdependence between the parties. These transactions are characterised by buyers having the incentive to be proactive in their choice of sourcing behaviours, but also by their recognition that they do not possess the power advantage that would allow them to simply dictate the terms of trade. The transactions examined involve rebuys which are seen to include either an upgrade or are otherwise perceived as important by the buyer. In such situations not only are buyers most likely to be focussed on the presales interaction, but literature also shows that they have more flexibility in their choice of relationship management approach. Conducting an initial literature review suggested that buyer behaviour is likely to conform to broad perspectives whose objective is either to appropriate value through building cooperative relationships or to capture value by maximising transactional power. However, in order to better inform the research effort, an exploratory study was undertaken which showed that while the initially expected underpinning principles and practices are evident; they do not fully explain buyer behaviour throughout the transactional process. Through a further review of literature, including that from the emergent school of Service-Dominant Logic (S-DL), consideration of the professional buyer’s value perception appeared to offer a theoretical platform from which those wider aspects of buyer behaviour may be better understood. While S-DL is premised on the notion of value-in-use, and recognises Exchange Value, the exploratory study suggested that a further value perception may be present. Buyer Specific Perception of Value (BSPV), which is phenomenologically determined by the buyer’s wider psychological needs, may be a significant driver of buyer behaviour. In order pursue the research objectives, the adopted method of data collection involved engaging professional buyers in a contemporary interpretation of the ‘Diary - Diary Interview Method’ (after Zimmerman and Wieder, 1977). A web based diary was initially used to collect the thoughts of buyers as they progressed through the pre-sales and immediate post-sale interaction associated with an appropriate transaction. On completion of the diary, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the buyers to develop the themes raised. The interviews were transcribed and the resulting texts examined using Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA), which involved detailed examination of the textual data in an attempt to identify recurrent themes. These themes were then systematically grouped with the intention of developing a deeper and more complete understanding of the text. In order to present the QCA results in a manner that minimises the effects of decomposition and decontextulisation, a graphical format was developed to represent both the buyer’s adopted relationship management approach and also the buyer’s value perceptions. The term ‘Transaction X-Ray’ is used to describe the resulting graphic. The results are initially presented in the form of individual ‘Transaction X-Rays’ then, through the aggregation of individual results that share specific common characteristics, composite ‘X-Rays’ are formed. Analysis of these composite ‘X-Rays’ gives rise to the emergent themes from which the research contribution is derived. The dominant behaviour pattern to appear from the X-Ray analysis is that of the ‘T-Shaped’ Buyer, who characteristically adopts an Adversarial commercial approach to relationship management while simultaneously seeking, to a somewhat limited extent, the means for operational collaboration. Secondary behaviour patterns are also identified. ‘Transaction X-Rays’ also demonstrate that the dominant value perception held by buyers is that of Exchange Value, while also confirming the significance of Buyer Specific Perception of Value (BSPV). Recognising the limitations that are implicit in findings based on empirical evidence derived from a relatively small sample, it is nevertheless suggested that the dominance of the ‘T-shaped’ Buyer profile has a significance that resonates far beyond the confines study. For example, the findings appear counter to the philosophy advanced by those who suggest that by building a relationship, and openly sharing information, the buyer-seller dyad will develop in a manner that would not be possible via Arm’s Length approaches. A further significant contribution made by the thesis relates to the application of Service-Dominant Logic in respect of the Buyer Specific Perception of Value (BSPV) which is created for the buyer, during the pre-sales interaction. This point occurs much earlier in the value co-creation process than has previously been considered within the S-DL School, and identifies a source of value that has been largely ignored within S-DL. The thesis concludes with a discussion as to the significance of the wider findings of the study and suggests where further research may extend the contribution.

This thesis aims to broaden the spectrum of brand extension acceptance literature, largely defined by categorisation theory, and bring to light alternative and complementary criteria for predicting brand extension success. To achieve this, the theoretical framework of this study replicates the principal model in brand extension acceptance (Aaker and Keller 1990) and extends it by introducing the concepts of virtual brand tribal communities, consumer-brand relationships, and co-creation of value, which originate in relationship marketing and service-dominant (S-D) logic. The thesis considers brand extension acceptance criteria within the increasingly important paradigm of S-D logic (Vargo and Lusch 2004). The present study uses a mixed method research design in order to address the research objectives of this study, enhance the robustness of the study and improve the level of reliability of the research findings. The qualitative data from the study served to deepen understanding of the research concepts and to construct the research instrument. The quantitative data were analysed to test the research hypotheses, and provide measurable results that can be projected to a larger population; the data were collected through an online survey with European consumers in the entertainment goods sector (specifically, video games). The present study found that the factors introduced by relationship marketing and the S-D logic explain a high proportion of variance on extension acceptance of joint co-creation and high consumer-low company co-creation products. Major contributions of the study include the development of a more holistic framework of brand extension acceptance; along with the adoption of the S-D logic which establishes the existence of relational and co-creative parameters in the evaluation of brand extension products. In terms of theory, the thesis contributes to the conceptual development of the virtual brand tribal community and consumer-brand relationship concept; and provides empirical support for their dimensionality and impact on brand extension acceptance. Similarly, at a theoretical level the thesis brings together two dimensions of the co-creation of value concept which were previously found dispersed in the literature, and thus provides empirical support for the effects of the level of co-creation construct. Concluding remarks acknowledge the limitations of the thesis and propose avenues for future research.

The economic environment in which a firm operates is constantly changing. This thesis contains three essays to examine how firms adapt their innovation and international activities to a variety of external changes. The first paper, “Information Frictions and the Law of One Price: ‘When the States and the Kingdom became United’”, shows how information frictions affect the exporting behavior of merchants, exploiting a unique historical experiment: the transatlantic telegraph, established in 1866. Using a newly collected data set on cotton trade based on historical newspapers, I find that information frictions result in large and volatile deviations from the Law of One Price. There are also real effects, because exports respond to information about foreign demand shocks, and average exports increase after the telegraph and become more volatile. I provide a model in which exporters use the latest news about a foreign market to forecast expected selling prices when their exports arrive at the destination. Their forecast error is smaller and less volatile the more recent the available information. The welfare gains from the telegraph are estimated to be around 8% of annual export value. The second paper, “Survive another day: Using changes in the composition of investments to measure the cost of credit constraints” is joint work with Luis Garicano. We introduce a novel empirical strategy to measure the credit shocks that were triggered by the recent financial crisis: Theoretically, we show that credit shocks affect long term investments by more than short term ones. Credit shocks can then be measured within firms by the relative drop of long run relative to short run investments; using firm-times-year fixed effects to absorb idiosyncratic demand shocks. Using data on Spanish manufacturing firms we find that credit constraints are equivalent to an additional tax rate of around 11% on the longest lived investment. While the trade literature has established a positive impact of globalization on the productivity of firms, there is lacking consensus about the underlying mechanism at work: Trade theory focuses on a market access mechanism, but empirical papers point out that import competition matters as well. The third paper, “The roles of import competition and export opportunities for technical change”, conducts a “horse race” between the two mechanisms. Using Spanish firm level data, I find robust evidence that access to export markets leads to productivity increases, but only for firms that were already highly productive before. The evidence on import competition is weaker and very heterogeneous, pointing towards an omitted variable bias in earlier papers.

The diffusion of the neoliberal Silicon Valley venture capital (“VC”) model seems to be another case of convergence on neoliberal orthodoxy as the spread of Silicon Valley replication ambitions is ubiquitous. But, when looking under the veneer of the Silicon Valley VC policy diffusion trend, I find that VC policy diffusion is not a story of “universal convergence.” Though more than 40 states deployed VC policies in an attempt to create local Silicon Valleys, the policies they implemented took different, and interventionist, forms. This thesis seeks explain why variance, rather than convergence, characterizes the diffusion of this clear, successful model. Diffusion scholarship has made initial attempts at theorizing why and how diffusion does not lead to complete convergence. This thesis contributes to this growing body of work by conceptualizing and investigating how bounded rationality drives incomplete convergence. To do this, the thesis extends Kurt Weyland’s work on cognitive biases to by testing how five economic management norms shape the Silicon Valley VC policy diffusion: (1) pre-existing norms guiding state intervention, (2) private sector financing norms, (3) preferences for supporting large or small companies, (4) international versus local company support preferences and (5) bank or capital market preferences. The five economic management norms are drawn on to develop East Asian comparative typologies (Nightwatch-man State, Private Sector Promoter, Financier and Director and Command Economy) to test the impact of the norms in specific cases. This thesis also tests state-of-the-art diffusion literature’s hypotheses about the sources of variance in the diffusion process, namely: the impact of multiple diffusion items, diffusion items’ levels of specificity and diffusion mechanisms. Empirically, this thesis provides a large-N dataset of forty-six countries' VC policies and four East Asian case study analyses (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam). The case studies reveal how, in the face of competitive pressures, three of the five economic management norms propelled policymakers to choose unique policy formula. As a result, this thesis concludes that Tip O’Neill’s presumption that “all politics is local” rings true in policy diffusion.

The thesis consists of three independent chapters. In Chapter 1 (page 7) - Counter-cyclical defaults in “costly state verification” models - I argue that a pro-cyclical risk-free rate can solve the problem of pro-cyclical defaults in “costly state verification” models. Using a partial equilibrium framework, I compute numerically the coefficient of a Taylor rule that delivers pro-cyclical output, pro-cyclical capital and counter-cyclical defaults. This parametrization is consistent with the empirical evidence on Taylor rules. In Chapter 2 (page 67) - Monetary Policy, Leverage, and Default - I use the Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist (1999) model to study the effect of monetary policy on the probability that firms default on loans. I argue that a monetary expansion affects defaults through two opposing partial equilibrium effects. It increases defaults because it leads firms to take on more debt and leverage up net worth, and it decreases defaults because the cost of borrowing decreases and aggregate demand shifts out, increasing firms’ profits and net worth. I argue that the leverage effect could explain the empirical partial equilibrium finding by Jimenez et al. (2008) that defaults on new loans increase after a monetary expansion. I then argue that this effect does not hold in general equilibrium due to an increase in firms’ profits. In the full model, defaults decrease after a monetary expansion, although the effect equals only few basis points. In Chapter 3 (page 131) - Monetary Policy and Defaults in the US - I study empirically the effect of an unexpected monetary expansion on the delinquency rate on US business loans, residential mortgages and consumer credit. I consider several identification strategies and use Granger-causality tests to assess the exogeneity of the time series of monetary shocks to the Fed’s forecast of defaults on loans. I then compute impulse responses using a variant of the Local Projection method by Jorda (2005). I find that the delinquency rates do not respond to monetary shocks in a statistically significant way. The paper suggests that the risk-taking incentives analyzed in partial equilibrium by several existing contributions might not be strong enough to prevail and increase aggregate defaults, although they could explain why defaults do not significantly decrease.